As you know we had two loon chicks hatched on Saturday, July 18.  Loon chicks are considered “fledged” at 6 weeks so August 29 will mark that stage of their lives.  Both chicks seem to be doing well and spend most of their time between Middle Island and the south shore of the lake to the west of the Kiwanis Beach.  Please be extra careful when boating through this area, especially at high speeds as the chicks are still quite small and will dive shallowly and for short periods of time so are sometimes hard to spot.  If possible, it is best to avoid this area for activities such as tubing. We understand that the chicks are fun to watch but please stay at least 200 feet away (from all loons) and use binoculars.  Also, please be aware that if you drive them into the middle of the lake by getting too close you may be putting them in danger of being hit by a boat.

We received a call on August 2nd from a resident at the east end of the lake (who found our contact info on the WLA website) that there was a loon sitting in front of their house and it had not been moving or diving all day.  We went over and confirmed that it was not diving so we contacted our loon expert, Lee Attix, who, after further consultation and based on a recent similar experience on Kesar Lake, recommended we wait two days before we attempted to capture the bird.  We waited while the lake resident kept an eye on the loon and fortunately it apparently felt better and moved on.  Thanks to Cathy Watson and Wendi Rodrigueza for helping us confirm the good result.

Kim & Steve Lajoie